


Sleeping Witch

by DontTrustLoserCandy



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief description of a panic attack, Curses, F/F, I Repeat: INCEST, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Consensual Kissing, Pining, Sibling Incest, Sleeping Beauty Elements, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontTrustLoserCandy/pseuds/DontTrustLoserCandy
Summary: After a neighborhood-wide prank, Edalyn doesn't wake up again. Lilith isn't about to let this be.
Relationships: Eda Clawthorne/Lilith Clawthorne
Comments: 12
Kudos: 101





	Sleeping Witch

**Author's Note:**

> Actually wrote this waaaaaay before season 1B started, which makes some parts of this hilariously on-point or so off-the-mark that it hurts. Anyways, I edited it just enough to cover up the second issue (as of the end of season 1) lmao  
> Enjoy!

It had been Edalyn's fault for pranking the neighborhood.

She'd thought it'd be _hilarious_ to see everyone's houses swapped with each other, with a few overlapping spells making them _hungry_ to boot. That, plus some illusion spells that Lilith had deeply regretted ever finding in a book and sharing with her little sister, had ended in the place becoming a war-zone of hungry houses with seemingly unending corridors and doors that always connected back to the same place.

Their parents, not to mention _half of Bonesborough_ , had not been amused by it. At all.

It had been all Edalyn's fault, and she'd done it because some _stupid kid_ in their school that happened to live nearby had decided that throwing a pot of boiling water on Lilith's head while she was on her way back home from school was a fun idea.

(She hadn't even gotten hit by most of it. Edalyn loved to play "catch the spell" at home, and years of Lilith shielding off whatever half-assed attempt at a quick spell Edalyn threw at her out of the blue had honed her instincts well. Lilith considered it a sort of training for the emperor's coven, and she was proud of her reflexes.)

Lilith hadn't been to hide the minor burns (nowhere as bad as what actual _rain_ would've caused) from her sister's eyes, nor the ruined homework from their parents.

She'd been upset about that last one possibly the most.

And then by next week, the neighborhood itself had become one of Edalyn's ~~best~~ worst pranks ever.

And Edalyn had refused to apologize, or even just _to stop laughing_ every time someone got eaten by a house or spit out through the chimney.

Someone must have decided she needed a worse punishment than the months of chores and the raid on her prank materials (with the threat of forcing her to join the _romance lovers coven_ if she tried to break out her supplies or get new ones) that their parents had put on her.

So one day Edalyn just... Hadn't woken up.

It had taken Lilith an entire day to realize, to her shame. She'd gone to kind-of-thank-but-don't-do-that-again her sister but the door hadn't budged, and Edalyn had ignored all her words, apologies, and reticent thanks and even angry attempts to get the witch to _talk to her._

In the end, she'd left the house in a foul mood, and hadn't been feeling much better about her sister when she'd gotten back. After doing her homework and eating dinner (and slipping Edalyn's portions of both things through the door because sulking or not, Lilith refused to let her sister just _skip on learning_ more than she already did, or go hungry) she'd tried again, briefly, to start a conversation, only to be met with stony silence.

Lilith had left even angrier than the night before.

And then the morning came, again, and Lilith had been _sick_ of that locked door and the prank and Edalyn's sulking and _everything_. She'd forced the door open, tired of trying to bait her sister into a shouting match or just a normal conversation, and hoping with petty vindictiveness to hear her sister scream in alarm and try to throw some of the stupidly cute plushies she hoarded at Lilith.

There hadn't been any of that.

Instead, silence had greeted her, dark and foreboding, and Lilith's stomach had turned as she noticed the plate of food and stack of homework was in the same place she'd sent them to, untouched.

She'd found her in her bed, looking unnervingly still, unnervingly quiet. Lilith had (carefully, _fearfully_ ) taken her vital signs like they'd been taught in Hexside, and then tried to shake her sister awake once she was sure the witchling was actually _still alive_.

No amount of shaking or screaming had worked, and even their parents (often busy, often distant, loving but so obviously uncomfortable with the idea of _raising children_ that Lilith and Edalyn had learned early on to be self-sufficient) had been attracted by the commotion, had seen what Lilith had.

They'd called for a doctor for an official analysis, but it was pretty clear to see.

Edalyn had been cursed.

It wasn't even hard for the doctor to determine what kind of curse it was.

Lilith had sat on the bed as the doctor and their parents talked over her sister's body like she wasn't there. Their words had been grim and uncomfortable to listen to, and Lilith had ended up cradling her sister's hand in her lap just to make _sure_ her vitals didn't just... stop.

"True love's kiss is generally the best remedy for this kind of curse," the doctor had sighed, signing some papers with his fourth and fifth hand while the third fidgeted with his magithoscope. "In lieu of that, you could try some potion treatment, but those haven't been proven to have the best long-term effects so... It doesn't look good, if her magic isn't fighting off the curse."

"What about finding the caster?" Lilith asked, breaking into the Adult Conversation even as she kept her eyes on her sister's sleeping figure. Kept making sure that her lungs didn't stop working. "Couldn't we track them down and tell them to undo it?"

Lilith had to bite her tongue not to say "threaten" or "force", but she hadn't quite been able to use the word _ask_.

The doctor seemed to notice her struggle, looking a bit more nervous as his fidgeting got worse.

"I- I'm afraid no, little miss. The curse has taken a deep hold and it seems to, ah, quite like it there." More nervous fidgeting, his five eyes going from their parents back to Lilith sitting by Edalyn's side, back to their parents. "Finding the caster at this point wouldn't do much good, unless you'd like to take legal action against them."

"No, that's. That's all right," their mother sighed, rubbing her eyes and finally at looking Lilith, eyes tired. "Lilith, do you know... do you know if your sister was dating someone?"

"No, mother."

"I see."

"Well, let us invite you to a cup of tea before you leave, doctor," their father said, herding out the doctor with the kind of levity only him and Edalyn could hold over terrible matters.

And then their parents were gone with the doctor, neither bothering to ask Lilith if she wanted to come with.

That was okay. Lilith didn't think she could leave her sister just like that.

They'd always been closer to each other than with their parents, anyways.

They'd always had each other.

"It's your fault for not leaving things well alone, Edalyn," Lilith whispered, tightening her hold on her sister's hand as her throat went hot and tight. "You rotten sister." 

And Lilith wept, eyes going hot before she could take controls of her emotions.

She wept and wept and her sister didn't wake to comfort her or make a (horrible, _terrible_ ) joke that never failed to make her laugh.

Their parents seemed to take the news of them basically losing a child as... well as a parent could do, Lilith assumed.

Most of the time, it was like nothing had really changed. It made something dark coil in Lilith's stomach when she gave herself the time to think about it.

Mostly, she didn't. She spent her days studying, like always, and getting the best grades in class, also like always.

Her field of study had grown to include anything she could get her hands on about the healing track's spells, sure, but she _was_ aiming to join the emperor's coven after all.

The only real change was the almost physical hole that was her sister's absence in the school and the fact that Lilith had taken over the duty of magically feeding her and making sure Edalyn didn't shrivel in her condition.

It was a sleep spell after all, not a stasis one. At least she'd had the wits to ask the healing track teacher and the school nurses about ways to take care of Edalyn until she woke up.

Because she _would_ wake up. Lilith would make sure of that.

So she studied, and read up, and politely accepted any condolences from teachers and neighbors alike even as she forced herself not to clench her hands around her uniform, not to scowl at whoever was talking at her, not to _scream_ as the world went back to normal around her, as if her sister had never been there to begin with or, worse, as if she _was a burden they were finally free from._

Lilith studied, often and diligently, and the only change was that she moved her study table to her sister's bedroom (after a thorough de-cluttering job that had mostly ended turning into Lilith shoving all of Edalyn's things inside the closet and sealing it shut because she refused to use the boxes their parents had oh so thoughtfully left by the door. Her sister was not _gone_. Lilith just... needed space to work. Edalyn would eat her skin if she truly tried to organize the chaos she seemed to thrive on, anyway).

But it was frustrating. Over and over again, all she'd find to break a curse like Edalyn's would point to the same thing: true love's kiss, the physical manifestation of someone's absolute devotion to the cursed person, feelings powerful enough to repel the kind of curse that'd grow a mind of its own and slowly leech off of the accursed's magic and lifeforce if left unchecked.

Lilith knew Edalyn had dated some fellow students before. But they'd always been more about her fooling around, or giving some kid with an infatuation a chance because "why not?". She always dumped them not long after and, when they eventually tried to take their revenge, she'd prank and humiliate them even worse. One guy, in particular, had even been _eaten_ once, thanks to some kind of abomination monstrosity Edalyn had raised when he'd tried to challenge her to a witch's duel.

As if Edalyn would _ever_ fight fair.

Lilith also knew who'd been the last kid to get dumped by her sister, some snotty witch two years older than Edalyn who'd tried to accost Lilith once word had gotten out about her sister's curse.

The witch had tried to sleaze their way into Edalyn's room, promising to "break the curse" if Lilith just "left them alone for a while". Lilith had had to try very, _very hard_ to keep her cool and not blast the absolute creep across the whole school.

(Suffice to say, the witch had mysteriously fallen down five flights of stairs not even two hours later, not that anyone could prove anything. It was the witchling's fault for tying their shoelaces together.)

The potions Lilith had researched weren't much help, either. Most of them required _some_ form of a struggle between the witch's magic and the curse, and as far as Edalyn went... There hadn't been any, unnervingly so.

Lilith didn't know what to do anymore. She didn't _want_ to wait until she joined the emperor's coven and gained access to their private libraries to free her sister; didn't want to spend potentially years watching her slowly waste away while Lilith could do nothing but follow a dream they were supposed to share, to reach _together_.

It hurt. It hurt to watch Edalyn lie in bed, unresponsive and quiet when she was _everything but_. After only three weeks Lilith was on the verge of going against everything she'd learned about mixing magic and curses, and attempting a body swap if it just meant getting her sister _back_.

They'd always needed each other. _Lilith_ had always needed her. They were supposed to graduate Hexside and join the emperor's coven, _together_ , and be an unstoppable force. Even when they fought, or disapproved of each other, or even hated each other a little, they still _loved_ each other.

Lilith still loved her sister, and not always in ways sisters were supposed to do. She'd come to terms with that (and decided to never _ever_ tell Edalyn) a long time ago.

...But Lilith had nothing left to lose now, had she? Even if she graduated, even if she joined the emperor's coven, it would always feel hollow deep down if her sister wasn't there to ground her, to hold her hand like when they were small children and still didn't understand why their parents hated to pick them up when all other parents did so _joyfully_ with their kids at the park.

She breathed in, then out, and got up from her chair. Walked to her sister's bed and sat down. Absently checked her pulse and watched for the signs of her breathing.

Still alive. For now.

Lilith closed her eyes, tight, then opened them again after a moment. No, if she was going to chance it, if it _worked_ , Lilith would only let herself have the one kiss. Even if it didn't work, she wouldn't steal more than this one thing from Edalyn.

She just wanted her sister back, but she was too selfish to not let herself have this one thing.

(Her teachers had always said she was too ambitious.)

Lilith stared at her sister, still looking as unnervingly peaceful in sleep as she'd done the first day, birdlike chest fluttering with deep breaths and an unnatural sleep.

(They'd had this game, as kids. One where they'd play pretend, and each chose to be a bird, and Edalyn was always an owl while Lilith stayed with her ravens. It'd been 100% play-pretend, before Edalyn's magic even awoke, but sometimes Lilith still found herself childishly thinking of them both as she did back then.)

Edalyn's unsubtle _obsession_ with owls didn't help.

(Lilith idly wondered when owls were supposed to sleep, and when did they wake up.)

She swallowed down her nerves and wandering thoughts, focusing on her sister's face. Watching and memorizing every detail of her body, her features, as Lilith slowly lowered her torso and face towards her sister's. A thousand worries came and fled through her brain as if time itself were slowing down as she approached. 

Their parents weren't home.

If it didn't work, only Lilith's heart and magic would be the ones to suffer the consequences.

If it did work... If it did work, everything would go back to how it was before. And that would be _fine_.

Lilith was selfish.

_Please, if I can't break it, at least let us share the burden._

Edalyn's lips were lukewarm against Lilith's, probably because Lilith had been distractedly worrying her own before she'd decided to go through with her stupid plan, and the skin felt raw and throbbing even at the soft touch. Edalyn's lips were chapped, on the verge of too dry and close to breaking skin, and Lilith deepened her kiss at that thought. She'd steal their mother's lip balm later, if anything because it would be leagues easier than trying to find Edalyn's own balm inside the Closet Of Chaos.

But mostly, Edalyn's lips against hers made the points of her ears burn, a needy hunger waking in her even as she tried to keep her hands still on the bed.

Lilith _wanted_ , ferocious and desperate and vengeful. She wanted for her sister to wake up; she wanted what she could never have, never _this_ , couldn't permit herself even the wishful daydreams; she wanted for the curse to _leave, disappear, leave her sister alone. She was **hers**._

And in a cold, vengeful part of her heart, she wanted the responsible for this curse to _suffer it back tenfold._

But even that was drowned out by the desperation, the unshed tears prickling behind Lilith's eyelids that she wouldn't allow herself to release. The fervent cry of _please don't leave me alone._

Lilith broke the kiss, breathing deeply as she slowly sat up and clutched her uniform in her hands. 

The disappointment hurt like a thousand knives aiming for every inch of her skin. The despair _burned_ like the beginnings of a meltdown in the back of her throat. And her own mind was the worst offender.

_Of course it wouldn't work._

_What sorts freak even-?_

"Lily?" A voice asked, sleepy and scratchy from weeks of magical force-feeding.

Lilith's eyes opened wide, body frozen in shock as she looked at her sister, rubbing her eyes with a frown even as she tried to weakly sit up. "Ugh, why do I feel like I slept for ages-"

A hiccup interrupted Edalyn's complaints, and it took Lilith a while to realize it had been _her_ , even as her eyes burned and weeks worth of tears started pouring out of her eyes.

"Lils?!" Edalyn said, sounding _worried_ , and Lilith would've laughed if her body hadn't apparently decided it was time for her to sit back and just stare through blurry eyes as every bit of control over her emotions warred in her chest and gave up and it just _felt awful_. "Who did this? Who hurt you?"

Lilith tried to laugh quietly, and choked on a sob. Her hands wandered, no longer under her strict control, and clung to Edalyn's favourite dress (the only one which she somehow always managed to keep clean from staining permanently, by some miracle or magic). Lilith curled on herself, sobbing hiccups as her eyes and nose ran wetly, hiding her face against Edalyn's legs.

She wanted to shout at her. She wanted to kiss her. She wanted to apologize.

_She needed-_

"There. There," Edalyn said, with the kind of lost intonation that their mother used when they were upset and she didn't know how to react. "C'mere, you nerd."

And then Edalyn's hands were tugging on her clothes, and Lilith let herself slump forwards, hiding her face on the crook of Edalyn's neck as she sniffled and tried to wrestle back control over herself.

Edalyn's arms wrapped around her back, protectiveness oozing out of the gesture, and Lilith _ached_.

"What are their names? I just want to talk," said Edalyn, voice calculatingly soft, and Lilith tensed like a wire.

" _No_ ," she barked, tears and other fluids still running down her face and quickly ruining Edalyn's dress. "Your last _prank_ got you _cursed to sleep!_ We thought you'd never wake up again, Edalyn!"

"Is- is this a joke or-?" Her sister said, the confidence in her voice morphing into confusion.

"Does it _look_ like one to you?" Lilith bit back, looking her sister in the face with her angriest frown possible.

It was always easier to be angry at her. Even when she wasn't.

"...What happened?" Edalyn finally asked, voice softer as she touched Lilith's cheeks- and wiped the tears off. "You look gross."

"I've been crying," Lilith sniffed defensively, ignoring the sharp sting near her heart.

"Well, _duh_."

Lilith sniffed again, pointedly. The sound came wetter than she was aiming for and she grimaced.

"How long have I been conked out? I feel like shit." Edalyn grouched, stretching her muscles the best she could while still half-sitting, half-lying in bed with a sister wrapped around her.

"It's been... a while." Lilith hesitated, reticently sitting back and leaving Edalyn space to sit up properly.

Of course, Edalyn chose to just slump down further, propping a pillow behind her back.

" _How_ long, Lils? Don't give me that "it's been a while" crap. Who are you, mother after one of her trips?"

Lilith frowned.

"You _know_ mother-"

"Lilith. How long?" Edalyn cut in, tone serious even as she comfortably slumped on the bed.

Lilith's shoulders fell, defeated. She looked down at her hands, tightly wound together, and tried to hold onto the little control she still had.

"...Three weeks," she finally said, flinching at the sharp intake that followed.

Edalyn was silent for a time.

"I missed your birthday."

"What?" 

"Your birthday was a week ago, wasn't it?" Edalyn said, _pouting_ of all things.

Lilith blinked at her.

She... Hadn't even noticed her birthday coming and passing, and their parents had never been good at remembering these kinds of things to begin with.

"It doesn't matter," Lilith said, waving it off. "You were under a _sleeping curse_ , I didn't have time for that sort of thing."

"And mother and father forgot," Edalyn added, unimpressed.

" _It doesn't matter, Edalyn_ ," Lilith grit out, puffing out in defensive anger. "You weren't waking up and I couldn't find _anything_ that'd help break the curse. Even elixirs were useless because your magic _wasn't fighting back_!"

"You think I _wanted_ to be cursed and miss the last three weeks of my _life_?" Edalyn replied, cold as she sat up straight.

"No! I'm just saying that my stupid birthday didn't matter because _you weren't there!_ " Lilith shouted, feeling her eyes grow hot again despite her best attempts to _not do that, keep a hold of yourself Lilith, what sort of future emperor coven witch loses her cool like this?_

~~Edalyn. Edalyn did.~~

Edalyn went silent for a moment before cursing under her breath.

"Look, I'm... Sorry," the redhead sighed. "I didn't mean to upset you, I just- I never wanted to miss your birthday. Who'd even _want_ to curse me?"

"Aside from the one hundred eighty-nine people you got trapped in a _neighborhood made of man-eating houses?_ "

"... Okay, maybe you got a point," Edalyn frowned, slumping on the bed. "But still. This _sucks_."

"... I have notes of your classes and every single bit of homework you weren't able to do while under the curse. You should probably do those soon."

Edalyn groaned.

" _Sis why? Why do you hate me?_ "

"Keeping up to class standards is important if you want to join the emperor's coven someday, sister. You should be _well above_ those standards." Lilith said, falling back on a more comfortable, well-worn conversation.

"I _do_. It's just, it's boring! Homework and pointless busywork and mindless memorization, it _sucks_ ," Edalyn complained, finally taking notice of Lilith's desk in her room. "Wait. Where's my stuff?"

"In the closet. I needed space to research," Lilith said, opening the closet door with a wave of her finger and letting the pile spill out. "You need to organize your things, Edalyn."

"My room, my rules," Edalyn waved off, apparently content with letting the pile of junk like that for the time being. "Have you been sleeping here for three weeks?"

"Of course not," Lilith said, trying to subdue the blush burning through her cheeks. It had been tempting. Far too tempting. And definitely too painful to make her sister's curse the first thing she saw every morning. "I have my own bed, Edalyn."

"Uh huh. And your bed takes too much space for you to have piles of books on the floor? Or is perfect prissy Lily too perfect to dump those books in _her_ room and clutter it?" Edalyn smirked, poking fun at her.

Lilith took one of her pillows and threw it at her sister's face.

Sometimes she wondered why she even _tried_.

"Those were research to break your _curse_. Take this seriously, Edalyn." Lilith frowned.

"Yeah, yeah," Edalyn waved off, hugging the pillow and propping her chin on it. "How'd you do that, by the way? Just in case I get cursed again and all."

" _Don't even joke about it,_ " Lilith snapped, sitting up from the bed in her rage. Then she deflated, body slumping as she sat heavily, tempted to give up the last of her self-restraint and just lie in the bed to wallow. Just because it'd worked didn't make any less _wrong_. 

Edalyn grimaced, the closest thing from a flinch Lilith was likely to get.

"...Really, though. How'd you break the curse? It kinda sounds, yanno, like everyone gave up. Except you."

Lilith picked at the skin between her fingers, too conflicted to look up, although she could still see from the corner of her eye her sister's tight grip on the pillow and hear the tone in her voice.

Lilith was selfish.

"I don't want to tell you," she finally mumbled, frowning at her hands.

Edalyn moved, slumping towards Lilith.

"What? Why not?" Her sister said, sounding confused and almost hurt. "We always tell each other everything!"

Lilith gave her a flat look.

" _Locker room._ "

Edalyn made a face.

" _Almost_ everything," her sister corrected. "Most of the time. It was for a prank."

For Edalyn, the word "prank" seemed to be synonymous to "most secret, Above The Rules, What Are Consequences" hijinks. Lilith wished so often it wasn't so.

(Even if her sister's pranks made her laugh. Sometimes.)

Lilith shook her head, refusing to budge and confess her taboo, and Edalyn squinted at her.

Lilith didn't like that squint. It meant her sister was _actually thinking._

"... Lilith, you didn't do anything stupid like trying to magically divide the curse between the both of us, right?" Edalyn asked, voice grave.

"Wh- no," although that was a great idea, _why had Lilith not considered that, she still knew the spell-_ "I didn't- I didn't use magic to break it."

Lilith bit her tongue. She'd said too much.

"Hmm. Potions, then? You're pretty decent at them." Lilith shook her head. She'd _tried_ , sure, but it hadn't worked.

"I'm not telling," she repeated stubbornly, ignoring how her sister kept slumping closer and closer to where she was, until she was close enough to touch, suspiciously close to Lilith's lap.

Like part of her had feared, next she knew she had a lap full of ginger hair and two very inquisitive eyes, squishing her hands where she'd been picking at the skin until she managed to free them.

Although Lilith _should_ be telling Edalyn to stop acting like a child and get her head off before their parents saw them and celebrated Edalyn's coming back from certain death with a lecture about acting her age and property, she stayed silent. Their parents weren't home, anyways.

She could have this. Just this.

One of her hands moved to the soft strands of _almost_ untangled hair (Lilith had taken care of brushing her hair every day, but Edalyn had a supernatural talent for getting tangles. And the bad habit to store _things_ in her hair) and, carefully, started petting it.

Edalyn closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the rare sign of affection (Lilith was... self-aware enough to know she wasn't... the most physically affectionate person, to say the least), and then opened them again to stare at Lilith's face.

Crap. The distraction hadn't worked then.

"What did you do to break the curse, Lilith? You're being cryptic, and that's never good with you," Edalyn said, frowning even despite the head pats that, any other day, would've reduced her to a contented state of almost sub-vocalizations and sighs that bordered in _purring_.

(She'd seen one of Edalyn's friend do this to her once, and the wave of vicious _jealousy_ that had almost taken over Lilith had been... not her proudest moment.)

"I could say the same about _you_ , Edalyn," Lilith sighed, suddenly tired. "I didn't do... anything requiring a spell, before you ask again, and it wasn't a potion. I just... Did what the books said was the only cure."

Edalyn stared at her, patiently waiting for the rest. Seeing that Lilith wasn't going to be forthcoming, she waved her hand into the air. The circle was slightly wobbly, muscle memory atrophied by weeks of being under the curse, but it _did_ bring Edalyn a book.

Or well, smacked the book against Edalyn's face at top speed.

Lilith was almost tempted to say something snide about being glad Edalyn looked so eager to read now, but that thought had Edalyn's voice written all over it.

So she settled for a little smile that quickly disappeared once it dawned on her that Edalyn was about to find out.

That Lilith was going to lose the feeling of her sister's hair in her fingers, her head in her lap, the casual intimacy they always had growing up like they did.

Edalyn was going to realize how rotten her sister actually was, and Lilith was going to lose her forever.

The fear clamped its teeth against her heart and lungs like a demon overjoyed with the prospect of eating witch for dinner.

Lilith stayed silent.

She didn't move. 

She could almost see the moment when her sister reached her own conclusions, her body going still over Lilith's lap.

"Oh," Edalyn finally said, sounding _awkward_ of all things. "So, uh, who had the honors of, ah, smacking me one in my sleep, which isn't creepy at all?"

" _Edalyn!_ " Lilith said, because if this was her sister's newest idea of a joke at Lilith's expense, _it wasn't funny_.

"What? It's not like I could've known who was in here while I was sleeping like the dead, could I?" Edalyn complained, looking uncomfortable even as she hid her face in Lilith's lap and her own hair.

Uncomfortable, but not at Lilith.

_Oh_ , she realized, _she doesn't know._

_I could tell her-_

_I could-_

Lilith sighed and tucked her sister's hair away until she could see her face again. Or at least the part that wasn't trying to fuse with Lilith's school uniform.

"Nobody did. I didn't let anyone else come into this room after the doctor told us what it was," Lilith explained, doing her best to keep her voice level, even if her hands couldn't but shake a little more with each word.

It was the truth, too. Lilith had taken over her sister's care-giving and their parents had only nodded and flitted back to their own, busy lives.

Lilith understood but. Sometimes she wished she could be angry like her sister.

"Nobody came in except me."

Edalyn looked at her, face still half-hidden in Lilith's lap, and Lilith tried to hold eye contact.

She succeeded for a record time of two seconds.

She tried not to flinch ( _hold it in, keep your back straight, like the unflappable witches from the emperor's coven_ ) when her sister finally pulled away and braced herself for- something. Screaming, a nasty prank, a rejection, her mind couldn't stop coming up with new and increasingly unlikely possibilities. Make their parents kick her out of the house, send her to the Conformatorium, abandon her at the mercy of the Bat Queen-

Something touched her cheek, startling her out of her panicked spiral and making her aware of how breathing was becoming more difficult by the second. Magic? Her punishment then?

" _Breathe, Lilith, jeez,_ " Edalyn said, somewhere from far away, and Lilith thought that was probably the best idea Edalyn had ever had. "Come on, breathe with me, sis."

Lilith stared at her sister, sitting in front of her and then _casually putting their hands on each other's chests_ , and stared some more. Slowly, she got her breathing back under control, viscerally feeling her hand against Edalyn's chest and almost _trembling_.

_What was going on with her?_

"Better?" Lilith nodded, feeling a bit faint from her... episode, and startled when Edalyn's hand went back to her cheek. "Lily, no offense, but you're an idiot."

"Excuse me-?" Lilith frowned, puffing up with wounded pride and hurt.

"Let me _finish_ , jeez. You always do this," Edalyn said, shaking her head and sounding... fond. And uncharacteristically mature for someone who'd thought putting _ghosts_ in the _lockers_ was a good idea. "You jump to conclusions and try to prepare for them and then completely mess it up."

"I don't-!"

" _I like you too, Lilith,_ " Edalyn blurted, talking over Lilith's nascent rant and cutting it by the root.

Lilith stared, speechless.

Then, realization sunk like a bag of stones.

"It's not-- it's not the same-"

Edalyn sighed, impatient.

"The book is weirdly specific about the romantic love thing to break the curse, isn't it? Then yeah, it's the same." Her sister said, apparently done with going around in circles. "Or... it could be. You're the most important thing in the world to me, Lilith. I don't know if that extends to romantic shit too but, I'd like to try. I _want_ to try."

Lilith stared at her. She'd never--

She'd never considered this as possibility.

She'd never thought to prepare for _this_.

What little bit of reserve left in Lilith crumbled, and she found her eyes going hot, tears she'd suppressed for way too long rushing out in a messy race.

Lilith _sobbed_ , loud and nasty and nothing she was supposed to be, everything that would get her a stern talk or a disapproving frown, and gratefully sunk into her sister's arms.

Once a little calmer, Lilith looked up at her sister (awake, uncursed, _alive_ ) and tried to smile.

It was okay. 

_It was okay._

Lilith was wretched, but her sister would be wretched with her.

Edalyn smirked in answer and, before Lilith could react, pressed their lips together in a soft, chaste kiss.

"Now we're even," Edalyn grinned, looking smug.

Lilith breathed out a laugh and pulled her down for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> (for whoever might ask, no, I don't think Lilith would curse her sis in this au, after her Very Not Good Bad Terrible Experience in this. Small mercies, eh?)


End file.
